Firstly, what do we mean by pot-bound? This refers to plants - usually perennials, or shrubs - which have been in a pot for so long that their roots are bursting out in frustration.
It can apply to plants we have in decorative pots in our gardens: and it can apply to plants we buy from the garden centre.
Here's a good case of the latter:
This was a small shrub which a Client bought, and wanted me to plant. It was clearly a bit pot-bound: we could tell, because those fibrous roots were fighting their way out of the bottom of the plastic pot.
I left one clump of roots to show you, and I'd already snipped off the other four sprouts, from the other drainage holes. There is no point trying to keep them: they were bone dry, and therefore no longer working for the plant. Sometimes, in this situation, if the pot has not been moved for a long time, and has been well watered, the exposed roots will still be moist, in which case you can often gently pull the pot off, and they will slip through the holes, undamaged. But not in this case! So they had to go....
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